Macavity's Not There
by Admetus
Summary: Bombalurina is Macavity's sister, but they get separated as kittens. Will they ever see each other again? xx
1. Chapter 1

In a comfortable little house on the edge of town lived a cat and her two kittens. They shared the house with a middle-aged lady who had been given the cat by her sister. She was never very attached to the mother who was shy and quiet but she loved the younger kitten who was beautiful and friendly and playful. The older kitten was too mischievous and naughty for their owner to become really fond of him.

On a cold day in November the kittens rushed out of the house as normal not knowing that something would happen that day that would change their lives forever.

"Come on, Bombalurina. We want to get there today," called the older kitten as he ran along the pavement ahead of his sister jumping after fallen leaves and leaping over puddles.

Bombalurina had stopped to admire a beautiful queen sat cleaning her fur in the window of one of the houses they were passing. She had amazing, soft cream fur and was wearing a dark red collar studded with diamonds. "Wow,"the little kitten breathed,"I wish I looked like that." Her brother's voice interrupted her thoughts,"Are you coming or what?" "Sorry, Macavity. I'm coming," she called and hurried after him.

He was waiting at the end of the road for her and impatiently tapping his paw. "What took you?", Macavity demanded as she reached him. Not waiting for an answer her turned and ran off again.

Running as fast as she could Bombalurina caught him up. "I saw this beautiful queen with cream fur. I wish I had cream fur," she sighed.

Macavity rolled his eyes. "Who wants boring cream fur. It's so plain and normal. Red is a much nicer colour and much more interesting, now stop daydreaming and hurry up." The kittens rounded a corner and jumped over a wall into a junk yard.

"Macavity! Bombalurina! Finally!", a black and gold kitten came running to meet them,"You said you'd be here earlier."

"Hi, Demeter," Bombalurina greeted her best friend,"Our owner forgot to let us out this morning." The three kittens headed back in the direction Demeter had come from.

"We wanted to play tag but it's really boring with just two," Demeter was saying as they climbed over a pile of rubbish to join a fourth kitten sat on a stack of old tyres. "Munkustrap said we should wait for you."

Munkustrap leapt to his feet. "Hi, you two," he hopped over and nipped Macavity's tail, "You're it!" Laughing the kittens scattered across the rubbish with Macavity chasing after them. He caught Demeter easily and then she caught Bombalurina and so the game continued until they were all panting and tired and it was time for lunch. Some of the adults had caught a mouse for each of them and left them on a chair so all the kittens jumped onto the chair at once to try and grab the biggest mouse. "Mine!", wailed Bombalurina as Munkustrap grabbed a mouse from under her nose.

"No, it's mine," he told her,"I picked it up first."

Bombalurina opened her mouth to reply and Demeter quickly handed her another mouse to stop any more arguing. "Here have this mouse."

The four friends sat happily eating for a while in silence. Then the snuggled up together and dropped off. Their snooze lasted an hour or two and then Macavity woke up and wanted to play again. This time the played hide-and-seek in the rubbish and when they got bored of that they had a contest to see how could jump the highest. Macavity and Munkustrap were way better than the other two and carried on jumping way after the girls had given up. In the end Macavity won.

"Look, it's evening," pointed out Demeter,"It's time to go home."

The kittens all said goodbye to each other and set off home thinking about the nice suppers waiting for them when they got there.


	2. Chapter 2

Bombalurina and Macavity raced each other down the street to their house. Of course he won by miles but that didn't bother his little sister. He was waiting on the door step for her and they entered the house together laughing. Their mother was sitting in her basket by the door and grabbed them as they came in.

"Look at you two. How do you get so dirty?", she chuckled and began to lick Macavity's fur clean.

He squirmed and tried to escape. "Get off. Stop it!", he yowled while Bombalurina sat giggling at the look on his face. She found it less funny when their mother dropped Macavity and caught her before she could run away.

When they were both clean she let them go and they hurried off up the stairs to play hide-and-seek in their owner's bedroom. "I get to hide first," decided Macavity, "You count to twenty then come and find me."

"That's so unfair! I want to hide first. You got to hide first last time," Bombalurina complained.

Macavity rolled his eyes. It didn't really matter who hid first so he agreed to let Bombalurina go off to hide and closed his eyes.

Next thing he knew his owner was picking him up and carrying him downstairs. "What's going on?", he thought as she put him in a travel box,"We've been to the vet's this week for injections. Why else would I be in here?" He scratched the sides of the box and howled. He was getting worried now. He had never been taken anywhere without Bombalurina and he wanted to get out and go and find her. "Mum! Mum!", he called but there was no answer.

Above him Macavity could here their owner talking to a woman he didn't know. He strained to hear what they were saying. "...mother was collected about half an hour ago," their owner was saying,"I didn't want to give her away but she's gone to a good home so at least I know she'll be looked after."

"It must have been very hard for you,"agreed the stranger sympathetically,"you're keeping the other kitten though aren't you."

Their owner nodded,"Yes, I'm keeping her. But I had to sell him. I couldn't afford to keep two cats." She laughed,"Everything is so expensive now, isn't it?"

Macavity had frozen. Sell? What did she mean 'had to sell him'? That was when kittens were taken away to new families, wasn't it? He didn't want to have a new family. He didn't need to have a new family! Leaping up he tried to claw the lid of the travel box open.

"He seems to be quiet upset", he heard the stranger say,"I'd better go now."and he felt the box be lifted up and carried across the room. "Bombalurina!", he wailed as he was carried out of the house and the box was put in a car. Macavity huddled in a corner of the box and burst into tears. He hadn't even been able to say goodbye to his family.

Bombalurina had climbed into the wardrobe to hide and had missed everything happening downstairs. She laughed to herself feeling smug when Macavity didn't find her straight away like he usually did. "I knew this was a great hiding place," she thought and settled down comfortably to wait. The minutes dragged on and she started to feel bored and cramped. The air in the wardrobe was stuffy and hot and she was tempted to just climb out and admit defeat. Then she thought about how Macavity would laugh at her for giving up when she was winning and determined to say in the wardrobe for as long as possible.

The minutes turned into hours and Bombalurina got lonelier and lonelier and more and more fed up. Why hadn't he found her yet? Had he forgotten her and was doing something more fun? She was fuming by the time she climbed out of her hiding place and stormed down the stairs to look for Macavity.

"Where are you, Macavity?! How could you have forgotten about me?!" She burst through the door into the kitchen expecting to see him sat in his bed or playing with one of their toys but he was nowhere to be seen. This annoyed her even more. Where had he wandered off to? She flounced into the living room but he wasn't their either. Next Bombalurina hurried back upstairs to check his favourite hiding place in the attic. It was empty. Starting to panic now she ran through the house calling "Macavity!" at the top of her voice. She was sobbing as she ran. He had to be there somewhere he couldn't have just disappeared!

Then it occurred to Bombalurina that Macavity might have gone out into the garden to play so she rushed to the back door but the cat flap was locked. Their owner always locked it at night when all the cats were in the house so he couldn't be outside. The little kitten sat down and sobbed. She didn't even look up when her owner came in.

"What's the matter?", her owner crouched down beside Bombalurina and stroked her soft fur,"You look sad. Are you missing you brother and your mum? Is that it? I know it's hard for you but they will be very happy with their new families."

Bombalurina stared at her in horror. Had she heard right? 'New families'? 'Brother and mum'? She couldn't believe it. The news just wouldn't sink in. They couldn't be gone, not just like that! She pulled away from the human and fled up the stairs to press her nose against the window looking out onto the road. There was no sign of her family. Not even a car moved outside. Bombalurina sat down heavily and began to cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped onto the window sill. She was all alone.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day as soon as her owner opened the door for her Bombalurina sprinted outside and ran as fast as she could all the to the Junkyard. She was sure Macavity wherever he had been taken would find a way back there. Then he could run away from his new family and live with her again. So he wouldn't be able to come into the house when her owner was in but that didn't matter too much, she thought as she ran. He could hide in the garden and she could take food out to him. It would be like a game trying to avoid being seen.

By the time she reached the Junkyard she was feeling much better and was convinced she would find her brother waiting for her there. Demeter was already waiting for her friends as usual and when she saw Bombalurina she came rushing over. "Hi," she beamed, "Where's Macavity? Is he sick or something?" Bombalurina was brought abruptly back from her daydreams about sneaking Macavity into the house and everything being back to normal by this question.

"He's not here?", she exclaimed and burst into floods of tears as her friend shook her head. "He has to be here,"she sobbed,"I was so sure he'd be here."

Demeter looked alarmed at her friend's strange behaviour but put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "What's happened, Bomba? Talk to me."

"Yesterday Macavity was taken away to a new home," sobbed Bombalurina,"I was sure he'd come back here. I was just starting to feel better imagining how I could hide him from our, I mean my, owner when you asked where he was. He's really not here?" Demeter shook her head again and Bombalurina burst into fresh tears.

"What's the matter?", Munkustrap joined them. He looked worried by the obvious distress on his friends' faces.

Bombalurina was sobbing too hard to answer so Demeter told him quickly what had happened. "He might still come," Munkustrap didn't sound convinced,"We'll wait here for him. It might take him a while to find his way back."

The three kittens climbed as high as they could onto the rubbish and sat waiting for their missing friend to come home. They sat there all day and all night and all the next day. Munkustrap and Demeter didn't want to leave Bombalurina by herself so they just snuggled up to her and tried to make her feel better. On the third day they persuaded Bombalurina to come down and try and eat something. She agreed but then went straight back up to watch for Macavity coming.

"What do we do?", Demeter whispered to Munkustrap,"She's so sad."

"We'll have to try and cheer her up and be there for her," Munkustrap said,"She won't be this sad forever." So they went back up to sit by their friend.

This went on for weeks with Bombalurina only coming down for food but eventually she gave up on Macavity ever coming back and stopped waiting for him. When he had been gone a few months Bombalurina realised that she would probably never see her brother again. She was very grateful to her friends for supporting her and she resolved to try and be normal again for them even if she would always miss Macavity. The net day she played and talked to them as cheerfully as she could. They could see how hard she was trying to sound happy and tried equally hard to not show that they knew she was still sad.

After a while Bombalurina really felt happy again but she never forgot Macavity and never stopped wishing he would come back.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been years since Bombalurina had last seen Macavity and she only thought about him every now and again now. Sometimes she wondered where he was and what he was doing. After he had gone she had become closer to her two best friends and now thought of them as her family. She had been thrilled when they had got together and had a kitten. Bombalurina didn't feel lonely with them all to look after her.

One warm evening in July Bombalurina and Demeter were strolling through a street together gossiping happily about the other cats. They were out looking through the bins of houses in a rich neighbourhood for some discarded toy for Jemima's birthday the next day.

They stopped at a house with a tricycle outside, where children clearly lived. "What about here," suggested Bombalurina and jumped up at the bin knocking it over so the contents spilled out onto the driveway. The two queens rummaged through the rubbish making disgusted noises whenever they had to touch something too dirty.

"I don't want it too look too used," Demeter said as she looked at a battered doll critically. "It has to be nice. It is a present after all."

"How about this?" Bombalurina held up a baby pink teddy with a silk ribbon. "It looks new. I don't know why you'd throw this away. It's not even that dirty."

"Oh, Bomba it's perfect!", exclaimed Demeter,"she'll love it!" Bombalurina handed the bear to her.

"It's lucky I already found her something a week ago or I would have kept the teddy to give to her," laughed Bombalurina,"It's just too cute."

Demeter nodded and picked up the bear. "I know. I love it!"

They set off home along the now almost dark street. Up ahead of them a tom came shooting out of a driveway and ran straight towards them. Bombalurina had a strange feeling that something important was about to happen. They stepped aside to let the tom pass and as he ran under a street lamp Bombalurina gasped and staggered backwards. "I can't believe it," she whispered. Demeter was looking at her strangely. She had noticed nothing unusual about the cat that had run past them. In fact she had hardly even noticed him. Bombalurina set off at a run after the strange cat leaving her friend staring after her in confusion.

"Wait!", she shouted as loudly as she could, desperate to make him stop. Up ahead the tom slowed down and turned. When she caught him up she couldn't speak for a moment, she just burst into tears. He looked bewildered and awkward as if he wanted to be anywhere else than with some one mad sobbing at him.

"Can I help you?", he asked after a few minutes of Bombalurina sniffing and crying but not speaking.

"I can't believe it's you!", she managed to get out after a while.

"I'm sorry, do we know each other?" He was staring at her trying to remember why she looked vaguely familiar.

"Macavity, it's me," she sniffed,"Bombalurina."

"Bombalurina? Is that really you? You look so different, so much more grown up," he laughed with delight,"I thought I'd never see you again."

They were both smiling now and laughing and hugging each other. They were talking over each other, asking what the other one had been doing and how they were when Demeter caught them up.

"What on earth is going on?" She sounded annoyed and fed up.

"It's Macavity! I've found him!" Bombalurina grabbed her friend in a bone-crushing hug and burst into happy tears again.

Demeter looked the strange cat up and down. Now she looked closer she could see the resemblance to the little kitten she had known. "I don't believe it. After all these years!" She hugged Macavity too.

"Come home with us," Bombalurina pleaded.

"I'd love to," Macavity smiled at her.

The three cats turned for home talking about old times and what they would do in the future now they were together again.


End file.
